


Just a Spoonful of Sugar

by lovelyskinandbones



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cooking, Determinator protagonist, Dimension Travel, F/M, Family of Choice, Follows Inquisition, Grief/Mourning, Male Trevelyan Inquisitor, Modern Character in Thedas, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Breach, Romance, Slice of Life, Slow Build, Slow Burn, oc is not the inquisitor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-08 23:04:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7777177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyskinandbones/pseuds/lovelyskinandbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I’ve been here nearly two years. There is no magical door that I can open or some spell I’ve ever heard of that would take me home. This is home now. It has to be. </p><p>I think the real story isn’t so much how I got here, but in trying to survive now. And there is no simple, straightforward explanation for that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age or anything of Bioware's creation.
> 
> i haven't posted anything fictional before so this should be interesting. 
> 
> My OC, as in the description, is a determinator, which means she won't be a traditional badass but she's not going to roll over and be passive about everything. The fic is going to be before the Breach, so it's going to start up around Act 3 in DA2 and then follow Inquisition.

The hearth oven releases a hot blast of air that ruffles my bangs. The scent of hot bread fills the kitchen area, traveling out and I wrap my covered hands around the long, wide paddle to slide the bread out onto a silver platter beneath the mouth of the oven. 

 

“Hurry up, I want that bread cut and sent out, now!” The head cook bellows over the roar of fires and the loud clangs of pots and pans settling against stone. 

 

I flap my hands to cool them off a little from the paddle and set it back near the oven. I heft the loaf of bread as if I mean to fling it over my head and move out of the way for a hassled looking elf woman - Elnora, I think, new girl and very shy. “I’ve got it. I’ve got it.” I yell back and steal a knife from the block to start slicing it diagonally in thick slices. Normally, I’d wait a few minutes so it can settle, but the lords of the manor are awake early and have last minute guests coming from the Free Marches. 

 

The crust crunches beneath the blade and the steam from the soft bread inside wafts up, curling around my face. My hand burns from holding it steady. 

 

The head cook looks like she’s about to tell me to slice faster - which she can go to hell for in that case, I woke up before her to heat the fires - but she turns on the elf girl Elnora. “Knife-ear, move your ass or get out of my kitchen! I need that bacon cooked proper!” She snarls. 

 

Racist cow. 

 

I don’t have time to start snapping at the old woman though, or comfort the new girl, so I finish my task and tap Meera’s shoulder for the butter she’d churned not long ago. She passes me a delicate glass dish without looking. 

 

I grab it and set it on the platter next to the bread and position jars of jam next to it. 

 

I look over and see Elnora trying to cook bacon in one of the largest pans we have while simultaneously trying to whip up heavy cream. I push the bread platter at her and shoo her away silently from the pan and the giant bowl she’d been contending with. “Go get that out there. Our precious lords need their bread.” I mutter and use my hip to move her further away from the stove fire. 

 

She’s a cute young thing, tiny nose, big eyes and freckles that cast all over her face. She gives me a hesitant, grateful smile. “Thank you.” She whispers as she takes the bread platter and flees from the kitchen. 

 

“I saw that you little shit.” The head cook spits at me. 

 

I turn the bacon over with a fork and then set the pan off to the side, near enough to the fire so it’ll keep the pan hot, but not on the fire or else it’ll burn. I take up the whisk Elnora left behind and start whisking the cream quickly, settling the bowl in a pot of boiling water and slowly adding the leftover, thick-grained rice from the previous night’s dinner. 

 

“Saw what Beverly?” I ask, concentrating on my pudding. 

 

“You with your knifey sympathies. Per usual, of course, even when they can’t do shit for all.” She’s seasoning a large tray of salmon to cook quickly for breakfast. 

 

“Piss off.” I don’t put much effort in it, I just drop raisins in the pudding and watch it bubble and thicken. Beverly hisses like an old cat across the way. 

 

“You won’t be the favorite forever, you little cunt.” She snaps and angrily turns to one of the other girls and orders her to bring out that mushroom broth for the cold roast ram.  

 

I would’ve pointed out that I’m not the favorite; I’m just better at cooking than she is, which the lord and lady of the manor recognize, but she’s too salty about the situation to care. She knows it too, she just gets irritated that I’m better in the kitchen than her and no one knows where I came from since I feign amnesia. 

 

I didn’t train in Orlais or Tevinter - and no one in Ferelden cooks as well as the people who trained in either of those places do - I learned it back home before I got here. New things, things people here haven’t tried and although I’ve had to adjust my recipes and the way I prepare food, I’m still lightyears ahead of a lot of them. 

 

I had my own cafe before, a little place that served small lunches and coffee and tea and snacks, and it had been  _ mine _ . I didn’t listen to some old woman scream at me. I didn’t have a kitchen this large that was open nearly all day and well into the night. My customers never groped me and got away with it because of antiquated social hierarchies. Fucking nepotism. 

 

I lift the bowl with my apron wrapped around my hands and set aside so it can start cooling and add curls of cinnamon from Par Vollen and honey from the Hinterlands in it by the spoonfuls. The lord and lady don’t care for rice pudding, but their children do. 

 

Elnora comes back in and spots me when I point at the bacon. She hurriedly starts piling it on a plate beside her, still greasy in its own fat. 

 

I follow her with the rice pudding still hot in my hands and pass by Beverly. She grips my elbow and shoves a small pouch in my apron pocket. “Your pay.” She says tersely. 

 

I don’t thank her, I just walk out of the kitchens and set the rice pudding on the table. 

Lord Garuth ignores the presence of all the serving girls but his wife Liana, his clever, clever wife smiles and greets us all kindly. We’re all on her payroll, moreso than we are on Lord Garuth’s. We cook her food, make her wine, spoil her children, and watch her husband. We watch everything. And we get paid well for it. 

 

We’re all her little birds and we get rewarded for our troubles. 

 

I see Elnora pass Liana a small missive. The lady of the house inclines her head and slips the girl a silver. My eyebrows climb a little out of reflex. A silver means that was pretty important. 

 

Liana catches my eye and winks slowly. 

 

I put the rice pudding down and go back to the kitchens to help finish breakfast and start lunch before the guests arrive in the early evening. 

 

  
...  
  


 

I work in the kitchens primarily from dawn until dusk and sometimes sleep there in case we have VIPs, but these guests must be more low key than I’d originally imagined since Lady Liana lets most of us go home early with the exception of the core senior members who sleep and eat there. If it gets any busier than they and the few servant girls in the manor can handle, they’ll send a runner for the rest of us. I’ve only had it happen a few times in my time here, but it’s always been a really crappy way to wake up. 

 

I take leftover bread from that morning and slices of cold ram, a small wheel of fragrant cheese before I leave. Beverly scowls at me the whole time. 

 

By the time I walk in the door, I already see two cups of tea steaming on a wooden tray. Fina looks up from playing with Fenarel and smiles at me. 

 

“Aneth ara.” She greets. The pale red tattoos on her face catch the light of the fire she has lit and make her look a little ruddy. 

 

“Evening.” I set my basket down in front of her and sit on the floor with my legs crossed and my dress caught under me. I open my arms for her son, who crawls forward with little but a burble. He only recently started crawling, a bit late in development compared to human kids back home, but he’s an elf so maybe that’s normal. 

 

He grips my finger and settles in the cradle of my lap. 

 

His wide blue eyes stare up at me so I make a face at him. He giggles happily. 

 

“You’ll spoil him.” Fina scolds but she’s more focused on stuffing her face with chestnut bread. She uses the small knife on the tea tray to smear the contents of a little jar on the bread slice. 

 

There hadn’t been enough butter or jam to bring back, so I’d had to settle for scooping out some of the bacon grease in a small jar. Before I ended up here, the thought of doing that would’ve made me gag. Now, I’m just careful to not spread too much. 

 

I hum in agreement. “I’m an auntie. It’s what we’re supposed to do.” I make another face and tickle Fenarel’s ear. He squeals and wriggles in my lap like a worm caught on a hook. 

 

Fina mumbles something but I can’t hear her what with all the cold cuts and cheese she’s stuck in her mouth. 

 

I bounce my legs beneath Fenarel and feel my calves protest at the movement. But I keep doing it since he’s having a grand time. 

 

Fina rolls up a soft wedge of cheese with a cold cut and holds it in front of my mouth. I eat from her hand obediently and keep bouncing Fenarel. She stuffs a slice of bread slick in grease in my mouth after and holds a cup of tea to me. 

 

“Stop it.” I push her hands away but take the cup from her and take a long drink. 

 

She’s Dalish, and Dalish never drink black or spiced tea; it’s always herbal and varying degrees of medicinal. The only constant benefit of any tea she ever makes is that it’s healthy. Which is good, because most of the time it tastes like dirt or some type of bitter root, or what I think must be tree bark. 

 

“We’ve got guests from the Free Marches.” I say around another slice of bread. 

 

She perks up a little. I know her clan ended up wandering around there. “Oh really? From which one?” 

 

“Starkhaven, I think. Something about needing advice about some prince turned priest. Or was it the other way around?” I wonder aloud. “Hm. Point is, Lady Liana is invested in it.” 

 

“Oh!” Fina looks more excited about it than I feel. “I know that one. Prince Sebastian, I think. His family all died. Murdered, supposedly.” She whispers and snaps up the last of the cheese before I can. 

 

I chew on my hunk of ram slowly and let Fenarel unravel my hair from its work-bun. It’s one thing that’s difficult to get used to here. The way they talk about death and murder, as if it’s normal - but it’s worse because it is normal and every day. Like on Game of Thrones. You play, and you win or die. 

 

I don’t like talking about it. Or putting much thought in to it. I’ve more or less accepted that I’m stuck here in this place, where elves and dwarves and dragons and magic are all real things that happen. It would be weirder but there’s things about it all that make me feel more at ease. I’ve stopped thinking about ways to get home. 

 

I haven’t thought about it for a few months now, because there’s only so much you can do when you don’t have power, or powerful friends, and also having to deal with the fact that people really think you’re crazy when you mention it. 

 

Fina makes it easier. She saw me spill out of some weird wormhole or vortex under a lake she’d been foraging near. She knows what she saw and still swears by it although she agrees that keeping it on the downlow is for the best. Months ago, I’d been a wreck, only able to function while I worked but unable to sleep and unwilling to eat. The only thing that made me snap out of it was Fina’s pregnancy. It had been a selfish slice of home to me. 

 

My sister hadn't stayed with her husband during her pregnancy since he'd been a cheating bastard so she'd moved in with me. Balancing a new business and a pregnant sister had made me intensely focused. 

 

Fina, essentially in the same position, had had the same effect on me. Her pregnancy had been hard on her. She'd stayed behind when her clan had decided to move on to the Free Marches for vague reasons she never fully explained. I’ve always assumed that she’d been having a long convoluted affair with Fenarel’s father that her clan had disapproved of. 

 

Whatever the reason, she’d stayed and ended up pregnant over a year ago. 

 

She hadn't been able to work much, but she'd taken care of me in my first months. Dealt with my mood swings between complete depression and hysteria, fed me and made sure I knew enough to blend in. 

 

She'd been more than a friend, a kind stranger, who found me at my most vulnerable. She'd become my sister.

 

I did for her what I did for my sister, back home. I helped her during her pregnancy and with her son once he'd been born. It was the strangest sort of normalcy I'd been given. 

 

Now, we live together and I still help her. It helps keep me grounded. Reminds me I'm needed. 

 

I can take comfort in the kitchen too, around fires and broths and food because it’s not quite home but it comes damn close. “I hear Kirkwall isn't doing too well.” I say cautiously. 

 

She nods, vacant eyed. “I know. My clan is still there. I don't know why they haven't left.”

 

I keep my mouth because honestly what could I say that would make it better? “You could visit. They'd like to see Fenarel.” 

 

Elves love kids. There's never enough kids around, especially for the Dalish since they usually keep their numbers low for the sake of practicality.

 

She sighs and flops onto her back dramatically. “I don't think it's a good idea to take him on such a long journey.” She frowns. “Too many children get sick.”  _ And die _ she doesn't say. 

 

I shrug. “Well I could watch him for you. You wouldn't be gone for too long, right?” 

 

She hums and shakes her head. “It's not urgent. It's okay.” 

 

I look at her doubtfully. “Well just let me know.” It goes without saying that if I need to, I'll pool my money into hers. We look after each other; we have to.  

 

“Ma serannas.” She smiles and waves at Fenarel who has draped himself over my shoulder sleepily. “I think you're stealing him from me.” She says with a smile. 

 

“I'm an auntie, it's always like this.” My sister’s niece had been pretty much the same. Kids love aunties since we let them get away with more shit. 

 

She giggles girlishly and lets Fenarel remain where is before stuffing the last of the bread in her mouth. I cluck my tongue at her. “That was supposed to be breakfast.” 

 

She settles down with her head on the meat of my thigh. “I’ll think about it lethallan. It would be good to see the Keeper again.” She says quietly. 

  
I leave her where she is and finish my tea in silence. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You were right, lethallan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the reviews and the interest this has gotten so far. It know the pace is glacial at the moment, but I promise it picks up within the next chapter.

  
  


I wake up before the sun rises because it takes an hour to walk to the kitchens. I move Fenarel off of me slowly, transferring him to Fina who is already awake. We share a small bed, flat and narrow and need to take turns with the only pillow we have that’s filled with goose feathers. It took me forever to get rid of the smell of goose, so now it mostly smells like rosemary and elfroot. 

 

Fina shushes Fenarel when he stirs and pushes a cup of morning-tea on to me. 

 

I take it and drink blindly in the dark, trying to blink the sleep from my eyes. “Do we have anything to eat?” I ask. 

 

“No.” Fina says. “I’m sorry I ate the last of the bread last night.” 

 

“It’s fine.” I mumble, still sleep-hoarse. “You’re still breastfeeding.” 

 

In truth, she’s trying to wean him, but Fenarel takes slowly to change so we’ve ended up having to supplement his diet with goat milk by trading herbs with our neighbor who has a nanny goat. 

 

“You should get ready. I warmed some water for a bath.” She offers and Fenarel announces his awakening with a yawn and smacking his lips. Fina shrugs off her top to feed him. 

 

I maneuver around her clumsily, and put my feet on the floor with a hiss. It’s fucking freezing this morning. We’re already in the middle of autumn. This coming winter will mean I’ve been here two years. Two years of no indoor plumbing, no computers. Two, long, hard years since I saw my sister and niece. The facts are less nauseating and upsetting than they used to be. I try not to dwell for long on the implications. 

 

I dig my toes in the cold, old wood of our floor and stand slowly. I arch my back and toss my shoulders, swing my arms around to get the blood flowing. All of my joints pop forcefully. 

 

“Can you light a candle? I can’t see anything.” I look over at Fina. Her eyes glow with a yellowish light in the dark. 

 

“We don’t have any wicks left so I haven’t made any.” She says. 

 

“Why didn’t you make a fire?” I grouch. 

 

“We haven’t bought enough firewood to last us more than a few nights and I haven’t been out of the city.” She says primly. Fenarel suckles loudly and interrupts us. 

 

I huff and slowly shuffle with my arms out in front of me to where the wide tub is and I feel the humid heat emanating from it. “Thanks.” 

 

“Mm hm.” She makes a cooing noise at Fenarel and I hear her switch him to her other breast. 

 

I slip out of my thin, short gown and toss my smallclothes aside to stand in the tub and squat. I dip the washcloth that Fina left for me in the water and start scrubbing at my skin. “Where’s the soap?” 

 

“Whoops.” I hear Fina get up and Fenarel grunt in irritation at the sudden movement. She rustles around and a thin hand grabs my wrist and places a soft bar of soap in it. It smells heavily of embrium. “I forgot, sorry.” 

 

I lather up quickly and wash my skin and scrub my hair. “Did the town crier come through yet?” I ask. 

 

Fina takes the washcloth from me and scrubs at my back. “Not yet.” She puts more force into her scrubbing and then dumps cup fulls of water on my back. She slaps my naked shoulder. “Done. I’ll get your dress and smallclothes. I was able to do laundry yesterday.” 

 

“I thought we were out of vinegar.” I say offhandedly and shiver in the cold morning air. 

 

“I asked one of the washerwomen near the forge to trade. I gave her some of our soap.” She says near the back window where he hang out clothes out to dry. 

 

I stand and shake the water off before slipping my smallclothes on and binding my breasts with   a thick wrap. I’m lucky that I’ve got small breasts; it means I don’t have to jump through all the hoops women with big breasts have to in order to keep them from spilling out everywhere. “Can you take Fenarel to Maeve in the alienage? I need to get to the blacksmith’s early this morning; we’ve got a large order incoming today.” Fina bustles around some more and after I slip my dress on over my head and button the front, she slips and knots the baby sling across my chest. She ties it tightly and Fenarel slips in the little hammock it creates on my back with his face looking over my shoulder. I can hear him blowing impatient spit bubbles at me. 

 

I frown and adjust the strap so it’s not directly on my tit. “What do we have to trade with her?” I know I haven’t paid her recently and her generosity, while abundant, will only last so long. 

 

“Fixed her son’s dagger for her the other night. Nothing to worry about.” She swings our door open and I squint at the low light of the lit lanterns in the street. 

 

“Thought you weren’t supposed to use the blacksmith’s forge for favors.” I eyeball her in the dark where I can see a little better. She makes a noise that means she’s avoiding the question so I let it be. I wrap a shawl over my head and drape the end of it over Fenarel’s head who makes a soft little sigh. It’s getting colder. Not enough to need furs, but enough to make me shiver. 

 

Fina drops a kiss on Fenarel’s nose who blows a raspberry back and we part ways; her to the blacksmith, me to the alienage and then to the kitchens. 

 

The day started off normal. Safe. Routine. I should’ve known better than to get comfortable with it. 

  
  


…

  
  


When my bread didn’t rise properly for breakfast that morning, I should’ve known something was wrong with the day. We had to keep it for the servants and I’d had to deal with Beverly’s smug bitching while I made a batch of thick, heavy oatcakes stuffed with dried currants and leftover figs to replace the bread. 

 

The guests from Starkhaven were still around. They spoke in hushed tones, eyeing all of the servants suspiciously. 

 

“We need him to take the throne….Vaels always held the throne…” 

 

“Be patient...just need to guide him...be there to help him…” 

 

“What say you, Lady Liana?” 

 

“Oh my, I couldn’t say. If he takes the throne, he knows he has cousins who will help him with politics. We used to play together as children, you know. I loved his parents.” She tittered. Elnora hovered around her the entire time, filling her tea and Lord Garuth’s wine. 

 

I didn’t focus on politics or princes across the sea. 

 

There were pastries to fold, rabbit to make into stew, and cheese dishes to prep for lunch. 

 

Lunch passed by quickly, then dinner - where Meera was absent and later found by Elnora to be privately servicing one of the visitors in the closet. 

 

I left quickly after filling my basket with leftover food, wanting to get to the alienage before it got dark and maybe buy some firewood with my pay. 

 

Elnora leaves with me. “Why are you going to the alienage?” She asks. 

 

“I have business there.” I say shortly. Very few people outside of our immediate circle know Fina lives with a human she calls “sister”, although they all seem to be aware of a Dalish woman who doesn’t live in the alienage but in rundown sections with the humans even if they’re not sure if Fenarel is mine or hers. They’re more observant than most of our neighbors. 

 

“Where do you come from? You’ve got an accent but I can’t place it. I tried asking Beverly, but she threw an apple at me, and Meera says she doesn’t know.” She leans in, overly familiar. I try not to lean away. “Are you a bard?” 

 

“No - definitely not. I’m just a cook.” I know what a bard is, vaguely. Some sort of singing spy. “I was found after I was attacked by some bandits and left in a lake. I don’t really remember everything.” 

 

“You don’t remember where you’re from?” She asks. 

 

“I remember people and living near the sea, maybe. I don’t remember much.” I walk faster. She keeps pace. 

 

“Oh how unfortunate. It’s a miracle you’ve remembered all your cooking training. And your name.” Her eyes glint. 

 

“The Maker’s miracle.” I agree.

 

I throw my shawl over my head, nod to the guard at the gate of the alienage and hustle away from nosy Elnora and knock on Maeve’s door. I see the old woman’s eye appear through a slat. “It’s Nana.” I greet. 

 

She grunts and opens the door with a half smile. “He just went to sleep.” She motions me to wait there and comes back with Fenarel wrapped up in his sling. She ties him over my back for me. 

 

I shove a small jar of cooking grease at her and leave, intent on bothering Pick for some firewood. 

 

I knock on his door and his head pops out of the window overhead. “What is it, shem?” he barks. 

 

I look up. “I need firewood. Four coppers’ worth.” I don’t want to carry four coppers’ worth of firewood home after such a long day with the added weight of Fenarel on my back, but I also don’t want to freeze my ass off in the morning. 

 

He grumbles and shuts the window without another word, but I hear him moving around in his small home. 

 

A few minutes later, Pick opens the door with a sack of firewood at his feet and opens his hand. I drop the coins in it and wait while he inspects them, he nods and then he notices Fenarel sleeping on my shoulder. “Oh. Didn’t see the little one. Such little ears.” His eyes go a little gooey. “Wait.” He tells me, as if I’m a dog which annoys me but I’m more tired than annoyed so I let it go. He comes back with a small sled and hefts the sack on it. The harness knotted at the front of the sled is attached to the collar of a burly looking mabari. “Pan’ll follow you out and bring the sack and sled back.” 

 

I look down at the mabari who looks up at me and whuffs with what I’m pretty sure is an unimpressed tone. “Thanks Pick.” 

 

“I don’t often get to see the little one.” He observes Fenarel’s sleeping face. “Where’s the father?” He raises an eyebrow at me. 

 

Fina, being antisocial and for some reason incredibly uncomfortable around city elves, rarely comes around but to drop Fenarel off with Maeve. The kid looks like he could be either of ours. He’s got green eyes and black hair - I’ve got the black hair and Fina has the green eyes - so the people who do know we live together as sisters are never sure who he belongs to. He’s elf-blooded which doesn’t help the confusion, but Fina never outright points him as hers, so I just follow suit. 

 

I clear my throat and sidestep the question. “Do you have any wicks?” 

 

He scowls briefly at my obvious dodge but disappears back in the house with a long string of wick that I give him an extra two coppers for before I turn away, Pan the mabari trotting after me with his sled. 

 

By the time I arrive home, I notice immediately that it’s chilly and there’s no fire going. It’s rare that I get home before Fina, particularly when I was the one who went to get Fenarel and do a little side shopping. I drop a log in the little hearth and strike a flint unsuccessfully several times while Pan waits on me. By the fourth strike, a spark goes up, and I fling the little dried bundle of weeds under the log. 

 

I pat Pan on the head hesitantly and give him a bone from a rabbit leg that I fish out of my basket of leftovers. He snorts, bows, and leaves with his burden after he and I unload the firewood in the corner of the room. 

 

Fenarel is waking up again so I let a small clay cup of goat’s milk rest near the fire while I hurriedly mash a sweet potato with some of the mushroom broth from the previous night. He’s snuffling at my shoulder by the time I’m finished with the sweet potato mash and the milk is warm. 

 

I shush him quietly and transfer him to the floor on top of a pile of sheepskin. I give him a few spoonfuls of the milk before I move over to the mash. For all of his stubbornness to leave Fina’s breast yet, I think it’s mostly the closeness he wants moreso than the milk since he loves food in any form. 

 

He isn’t a picky eater either. Susan used to be the pickiest eater and would never eat anything unless you tried it first. She needed the encouragement of the ‘choo choo train’ or ‘whoosh the airplane’. Fenarel just has to smell food and he gets excited. 

 

I’m still spooning about halfway through his meal, wiping his lips and licking off whatever comes away, when the door opens in a rush and Fina comes in to the room looking disturbed. 

 

I furrow my brow and keep feeding Fenarel who is trying to grab the little spoon from me. “Fina? Fina what’s wrong?” 

 

“Lethallan. Oh, lethallan, it’s horrible.” She gasps and sits down on our bed heavily with her face in her hands. I notice parchment crumpled in one hand. “Keeper Marethari wrote to me. She’s asking me to see the clan. She told me they’re having a gathering for our dead - they never told me! Never wrote to me about any of our hunters dying...and so many of them are dead now.” Her voice thins at the end, a tired squeak. “I don’t know why she wouldn’t have told me. And it just - it just doesn’t make sense, Nana!” She flings what I assume to be the letter to the ground in frustration. “Varterrals don’t attack the Dalish.” 

 

I feed Fenarel the last of his mash and pick him up to drape him over my shoulder on a handkerchief that’s seen better days. I start patting his back. 

 

“What’s a Varterral?” 

 

She doesn’t say anything at first but she flings herself back with her arms spread. “It’s an ancient guardian. The Elvhen, my ancestors, made them to guard our most sacred grounds. It’s not something that can be killed; it’s an immortal creature.” 

 

I barely hear Fenarel burp. An immortal thing. An unkillable thing to guard sacred ground - I know that the elves used to have a vast empire and that Tevinter (the place where fucking slavery is legal and an embraced practice) somehow crushed them...but to make something immortal? Magic, as it’s been explained to me in all the limited ways possible, is capable of a lot. I just - how do you make a creature immortal like that? It doesn’t sound like anything that I’ve heard mages can do here, so the bigger question that pops up is: how the hell did Tevinter vanquish the elven empire if they could make something like a Varterral? 

 

“Why did it kill them if it was made by your ancestors?” I ask finally. 

 

“I  _ don’t know _ . It’s all wrong. And the Keeper didn’t explain everything, but she let me know that  _ Merrill  _ got the Arulin’holm to fix the blighted eluvian that stole Theron and Tamlen from us.” She sits up suddenly with fire in her eyes. I rock back and forth a little, still patting Fenarel’s back lightly. “Do you know what Merrill is, lethallan?” She asks rhetorically. “A blood mage. She brought such filth to our clan - kept the cursed eluvian pieces and swore to restore it even after what it did.” She looks off to the side. “We all thought the Keeper was too soft on Merrill. There was always talk that...she loved her First more than the clan.” 

 

“She raised her didn’t she? Isn’t she like her daughter?” I ask, not meaning to play devil’s advocate. Sometimes it’s easy to forget she’s several years younger than me, although during the later stages of her pregnancy and after Fenarel was born it was readily apparent; I took over a lot of the duties and had a lot of spare knowledge that came from helping Kimi raise her daughter. I see that same youthful kind of impatience on her now. 

 

“A Keeper needs to keep the wolf at bay from the clan. Not put herself between the clan and her First.” She bites on her thumbnail. “Lethallan. You were right.” 

 

I keep rocking Fenarel and start to hum. I already know where this is going, I can see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice. “I’ll take care of him.” I promise. 

 

She stares at me and goes to the floor beside us. She wraps her arms around us and presses her lips to Fenarel’s forehead even as he sleepily protests. “I know you will. You’re my sister, shemlen or no, and you’re his second mamae.” I feel her tears start to soak in at my hairline. Her shoulders shake while she tries not to sob. Fenarel, bless him, ignores both of us in favor of sleeping now that he’s full. 

  
  


…

  
  


When we pool our money together, it’s barely enough for her to book passage and for both of us to still have money for goods. It’ll be tight living for both of us, but it isn’t anything we haven’t done before. I’m more worried about Fina once she gets back in touch with her clan since she isn’t sending a letter and Fenarel during his first real separation with his mother. 

 

I see her off at the gates outside of the city the next day after I begged off from the kitchens saying that I’m ill. She keeps holding and kissing Fenarel in between her tears. “Mamae’s so sorry da’len, but I need to do this.”

 

I take Fenarel from her and prop him on my hip. I look at her gravely. Family is always a messy business - no matter how close and how much Kimi and I loved each other, our fights could get nasty. “You’ll write.” I tell the younger woman. She sniffs and nods. 

 

“I will. I’ll write as soon as I get there. I’ll try not to take long - but I - I need to see them. I have to speak with the Keeper and the others. Things just aren’t making sense and...they’re all my family.” She wrings her hands. “Something is very, very wrong.” Her eyes go down to the boy I’m balancing. “I can’t help but think that I’m betraying him.” She confesses with a warble in her voice. 

 

I sigh and wrap my around her to shake her a little. “Family is complicated. I’m here. I’ve handled kids all my life. It’ll be okay. But if you don’t go...you may end up wishing you did. Things like this build up.” 

 

“I know.” She strokes his chubby cheek and gives a wan smile when he grins up at her toothlessly. “It doesn’t make it feel any less horrible now.” 

 

The man with the large cart and giant horses calls out to everyone who needs a ride and she finally tears herself away from us, looking back the whole time and waving until she’s completely out of sight. 

 

“Well it’s just us now, sweets. Since I’m not at work today, and your mother won’t be back for a while, it looks like I’ll need to be the one gathering herbs.” Not a chore I mind, but being that I’ll undoubtedly have to do it before or after work with Fenarel on my back, I can foresee weeks of cramps. It’s long, thankless work, that pays fairly well at the very least. 

 

I look down at Fenarel who has a stern look of concentration on his face. I wrinkle my nose. I know that look. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's just like the Blight. Just you watch - the whole world is going to go mad now that the templars are fighting the mages."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the views and kudos and reviews. I mentioned this would be a slow buildup, but this chapter and the next pick up the speed. Enjoy!

Four weeks go by and I still don’t get a letter from Fina. I’m thinking that maybe the ship was waylaid by still waters or no wind, or maybe she’s too wrapped up in her clan business right now to send one. Maybe she means to send one out when things are less tense with her clan. She hadn’t given me a defined timeline when she left her clan, but I assumed it couldn’t have been more than a few years. 

 

As to why she came from Kirkwall to Ferelden again, I have a few theories that have more to do with who Fenarel’s father is. 

 

It’s not the first time I’ve wondered if she’d been pregnant before and her lover convinced her to abort it, and this last time she simply refused to. 

 

Fenarel is confused for the first couple of weeks, wailing when he doesn’t spot or smell his mother, and crying on me when I try to sing him to sleep.

 

I have him sleep on my chest just so he has some amount of closeness. He likes putting his ear to my heart, and it settles him down. He seems to be on the track of being fully weaned although I supplement with goat’s milk when I can, which is becoming less and less due to the shift in my finances.

 

Between my concern over the stress his mother’s absence has caused Fenarel and worry over Fina, I’m more or less pulled out of the gossip in the kitchens until an incident happens in the manor that causes the guards to lock every available door and force the servants to all stand in a line before Lady Liana and Lord Garuth. 

 

Lady Liana eyes all of us, stolen in the middle of preparing for dinner, and one of her guests from Starkhaven. “Prince Vael and the Champion of Kirkwall were attacked by unknown assassins, sent from an enemy of the true prince. They were given information that should have been unknown to them. Information that has only been privy to those within these walls.” Lady Liana starts to stalk before us with her cold eyes fixed on each servant she passes. “Who among you is missing today?” She looks directly at Beverly and the old woman coughs. 

 

“The knife-ear. Elnora.” She mumbles. 

 

“When did you hire her?” Lady Liana zeroes in on her like a bird of prey. 

 

“Little over two months ago. She seemed a empty-brained tit, my lady, begging your pardon. Barely could cook bacon without this one stepping in.” She jerks her head to me so I let my gaze fall to my shoes. 

 

Lady Liana doesn’t move. “She could barely cook and you brought her on?” 

 

Beverly sputters. “She didn’t need much coin, my lady. She could be taught.” 

 

“And if she was in fact a bard sent here to spy because she somehow got wind that our household would be hosting allies of the prince, would you still assume that her not needing much coin was acceptable?” Her tone is crisp and icy. 

 

Beverly offers no excuse. 

 

“Send a runner to the alienage.” She turns briefly to one of the guardsmen. “Find her. Beverly. I believe we need to discuss the terms of your employment.” She nods to her guest and husband. “Forgive the indiscretion of my servants, my lords. I will deal them.” 

 

The Starkhaven guests inclines his head. “Much obliged, lady.” 

 

Lord Garuth claps his hands thunderously. “Start on dinner, you’ve hungry people waiting.” He eyes Beverly nearly murderously. “Anyone qualified to take over the kitchen from the old woman?” 

 

“Ashleigh, my lord.” The name comes out before I can stop it. The older woman next to me starts. “She’s been in the kitchens a long time and she’s a better cook than Beverly.”  And she’s not a wretched cunt , I don’t add.

 

The girls around me agree unanimously. 

 

Lord Garuth addresses Ashleigh. “You’re in charge of the kitchens. We’ll be looking for an extra hand, but in meantime, we’ll need to clear out the ones Beverly was close to here. So all of you will be staying overnight until further notice.” He says. 

 

No one grumbles but I feel my stomach drop. 

 

“My-my lord! Lord Garuth.” I stutter. He raises a blond brow at me. 

 

“What is it, woman?” 

 

“My -” I nearly bite my tongue, Fina isn’t here and if I say he isn’t mine, I probably won’t be allowed to go get him, “My son.” 

 

His brows raise to his hairline. “And where is he now?” 

 

“With a caretaker. I have to pay her, but she can’t watch him in the evenings. I’ve no family, my lord.” I stumble along the lie but it must come out relatively believable because he nods. 

 

“Bring the boy in the nights. Not the day though.” He stresses. “We’ve enough runts around the manor and I don’t want my children socializing with the help.” 

 

Bastard . I think but I curtsy and fall back in line. 

 

“I didn’t know you had a boy.” Ashleigh says to me quietly after we’re dismissed. 

 

“I gave birth before I got work here.” A story to support the lie, now. 

 

Ashleigh hums. “It’s expensive to have a caretaker when you’re on your own.” She has four children, but also has the advantage of having a husband. “Bring him with you in the mornings too. The kitchen won’t say anything.” She grasps my shoulder and squeezes gently. “A babe won’t clog up the kitchen at all. And the lord and lady never come in.” 

 

I’m not surprised by her; Ashleigh is a kind, older woman who saw the worst and the best of people. 

 

What worries me is whether or not they’ll have an issue with him being elf-blooded. 

 

…

 

There is a stunned silence when they see Fenarel. No one says anything, no one makes a move. He looks human, but he carries the larger, pointed ears of an elf even though they aren’t quite as long as a normal baby elf’s. With his wide gray-green eyes taking in his new surroundings, he waves at the women crowding around him so closely. 

 

I resist the urge to wrap him up and hide him from their eyes.

 

Meera speaks first. “He’s half, isn’t he?” She peers over Ashleigh’s shoulder. 

 

“Yes.” I say tersely. 

 

“Big eyes on him, and look at his pointy little ears.” Tamra, one of servants Ashleigh roped into kitchen duty coos. “For some reason, I thought you’d have a blond boy.”

 

Meera speaks again and I just want to punch her teeth in for it. “Half a knife-ear, still a knife-ear. Father didn’t stick around?” She meets my eyes. 

 

“He died.” I say shortly. 

 

“Hm.” Meera loses interest in him quickly. “So long as he doesn’t make the kitchen stink like shit, I couldn’t care.” 

 

I suck on the insides of my cheeks. Meera wasn’t often outwardly racist, but she never exactly hid it. 

 

Ashleigh reaches out to Fenarel and surrenders her finger. He grasps it and tugs on it with a wide smile. She rubs his gums gently. 

 

“He’ll be teething soon. You’ve got anything for it?” She keeps her attention on Fenarel who is now slobbering all over her finger. 

 

Oh shit. I don’t - Kimi used a teething gel for Susan. I have no idea what they use here.

 

Ashleigh gives me a knowing look. “First time as a mother, hm? You’re older than I was when I had my third, but not by much.” She curls her finger beneath Fenarel’s chubby chin. “I imagine it’s trying though, being a mother to an elf-blooded babe. And with your man dead, too.” 

 

I say nothing. Fenarel, bored with Ashleigh’s finger now, looks up at me and amuses himself by making wet smacking noises. 

 

“Don’t worry. He’s safe here. And I’ve got an old poultice recipe around I can give you.” She gives a wry grin. “He’ll thank you for it. And so will your neighbors.” 

 

The excitement over Fenarel dies off after Ashleigh claps her hands and orders everyone to start heating the fires. There’s a corner of the kitchen normally reserved for sacks of potatoes and onions that was quartered off with a puppy pen for Fenarel. A stack of sheepskin is piled in the pen and Fenarel goes there without a complaint. 

 

He has few toys and I only thought to bring a wooden spoon; broken and whittled down to a smooth nub, but he seems to prefer watching the hurried movement in the kitchen and is enthralled with all the noise. 

 

I start a heavy sauce for the mutton Ashleigh is roasting across the large kitchen over an open flame. I sweat onions and whole cloves of garlic and add capers once they’re browned. The scent of onion will stick to my clothes for hours after this. It always does. 

 

Maddy, the elven servant girl who usually only helps clean the kitchen, comes up to me with a clay bowl full of mutton drippings. She places it down beside me with a grunt. I spoon the drippings slowly in the pan and sprinkle in flour and call for a lemon. 

 

She brings it back halved and I squeeze a generous amount of lemon juice in the pan. “He’s beautiful.” She says quietly. 

 

I keep my focus on my pan. I add more capers and drippings to forego salt. “Thank you.” 

 

“I’ve never seen an elf-blooded babe who carried the traits of an elf so heavily. His ears...no mistaking what his father was.” She comes up to my other side and is starting on the rice pudding I’ve made popular amongst the Starkhaven guests and the children of the manor. “Do you get much trouble for it?” 

 

I shake my head. “Not really. I try to keep him covered. It’s...it’s easier.” It’s true. I try to hide his face whenever I can. It isn’t fair - but I’ve seen the way people view elves. Ashleigh’s unsaid protection is a godsend. Even Meera who thinks elves belong locked away in an alienage won’t say anything; the kitchen staff always has to stick together. If anything, I’m more concerned about anyone who isn’t a kitchen maid. 

 

“Shame.” Maddy seems sincere. “He’s got his father’s eyes, hasn’t he? Must’ve been a handsome elf.” She teases. 

 

“He was a good man.” The imaginary father I’ve made for Fenarel  is  a good man; he might as well be since I imagine his real father is a piece of shit.

 

Maddy clears her throat to ask too nonchalantly, “What happened to him?” 

 

“He died.” I repeat and try to force emotion I don’t feel in my voice to make the subject unapproachable. 

 

Maddy turns back to her work and doesn’t continue the conversation. 

 

...

 

Maddy is infatuated by the idea that Fenarel exists at all. She lets him stick her hair in his mouth, volunteers to feed and change him while I’m mixing a cake batter for dessert. 

 

I’m almost worried by the idea that she may try to make off with him. 

 

“You don’t have to.” I say when she’s finished changing him and is bathing him with a wet cloth. 

 

“I don’t mind.” She says with a sigh. Definitely infatuated. “He’s such a perfect little boy. So well behaved too. He didn’t even cry all day.” He made some noise when he’d soiled his diaper and when he was hungry earlier, but nothing like a squall or true crying. 

 

She rests him over her shoulder with a rag draped under him. “Was your man around for the pregnancy?” She asks when I’m pounding almonds and rosewater into a thick paste to add to the batter. I shave nutmeg in the paste and add more rosewater to smoothe out the consistency. 

 

“Some of it. Not the last part when I was as big as a whale.” I pause. Metaphors and idioms from my old life are a bitch to get rid of. “Druffalo, sorry.” 

 

She makes a sad noise. “He didn’t even see his child?” 

 

I add the paste a little at a time with yeast and egg in the cake batter and start folding it in carefully with a flat paddle. I don’t say anything because I haven’t really thought up a story for this.

 

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to ask so many questions about him. I know you don’t like talking about it - I’ve just never met a human woman who was with an elf man. Well, other than the nobles who like their trysts and dirty secrets.” She bounces Fenarel and looks up at me with her big eyes. “You stayed with him. Had his child even when you knew it would be - the child would be…”

 

She trails off and I just want the conversation to be over with. “Elf-blooded?” I finish for her. “It doesn’t matter to me. I loved him, he was a good man. He gave me Fenarel.” At least I don’t have to fake this; I am grateful that even in this hell I was thrown into without explanation, I got Fina and Fenarel. They aren’t Kimi and Susan - but they’re family now. 

 

“That is beautiful.” She says with feeling. 

 

I try not to sigh loudly over my cake batter as I finish it off and pour it into a large sheet.  

 

“Oh.” She says brightly. “I think he wants his mamae.” 

 

I all but toss the sheet in the open mouthed hearth oven and wipe my hands as clean as I can on my apron. Fenarel is already reaching out to me, grunting with a focus that means he wants to be held and spoken to in familiar hands. 

 

I let him tug on my lip and stick his finger part way up my nose, too tired to avoid it, before he shoves his face in my neck, one ear turned to the general place where my jugular is. He snuffles for comfort, sneezes on me, and settles again. I hum in my throat since it’s one of the things he seems to enjoy. 

 

I don’t know any lullabies sung commonly in Thedas, particularly in Ferelden, but I know the Dalish one Fina would sing to Fenarel. I supplement with the ones I know from back home, but since Fina has been gone, I use the Dalish one more often. 

 

I move out of the kitchens once I catch Ashleigh’s eye and she jerks her head to the side. I hadn’t taken a real break yet, so I capitalize on it. 

 

Away from the noise and just outside of the kitchens where the heat buffets against my back while I face the rapidly cooling outdoors of the manor, I sing. My elvish, according to Fina, leaves something to be desired. It’s not great, but it, apparently, isn’t the worst she’d heard. Fenarel doesn’t really care about my pronunciation, luckily.

 

I sing and rock on my feet. Fenarel gives a soft sigh and keeps his face in my throat. 

 

…

 

Something shakes the little bed I’m allotted like an earthquake and I jerk awake, away from filmy memories of cars and buildings and malls, and Fenarel gives out a sharp, annoyed cry. Maddy’s speckled face hovers over me, with her wide eyes looking frantic. “Nana, get up.” She says hurriedly. 

 

She’s dressed in her work dress and I push myself up on my elbows, Fenarel cradled at my chest. He’s making aborted short snuffles that leave a humid spot on my collarbone. “What?” my voice is husky with sleep. 

 

Maddy sits on me bed with one leg under her. “Kirkwall - oh Maker save us - an apostate blew up the Chantry.” She leans in. “He killed a Revered Mother and the templars and the mages, they all fought. The Champion, Hawke, fought for the mages. There’s talk that all the Circles are going to rebel.” 

 

I blink slowly. Just a few hours ago...did that happen yesterday? Two days ago? “How did word spread that fast?” I’m still baffled at times by the way things work without modern technology. 

 

She shakes her head rapidly. “The Circles have been talking about it for years, but now everyone thinks they may.” She wrings her hands in her lap. “Lady Liana sent for Ashleigh and told her that the true crown prince of Starkhaven went back three days ago. There’s been no word from Kirkwall since.” 

 

I feel a cold stone drop in my chest at her explanations. Days ago. Word only recently reached us - no word from Kirkwall.  No word from Kirkwall . I pray and hope to God - who I’m not even sure exists on this world - that Fina’s Dalish clan is far from it all. 

 

There’s too much information to process at once and I can’t think of Fina or the Dalish clan without wanting to panic so I somehow settle on: “Are mages being free so bad?” 

 

She meets my gaze. “ Mages on the  loose .” She emphasizes. 

 

I try not to frown and instead wipe my hand over my face. “They’re not going to go up and down streets lighting people on fire because they can. Not everyone with a sword goes around stabbing people.” 

 

She’s about the say something but hesitates and I see her eyes flicker away in the semi-darkness we’re in. “It’s not just the mages. It could mean riots, you know. Things always spread. Maker, it’ll be like the Blight all over.” 

 

I don’t know much about the Blight. Darkspawn, things that carry some disease spread by bodily fluids that change a person into an entirely different creature, live underground and rarely come up. 

 

Maddy is pulling me up and lays out my dress and the leather band I use to tie my hair up. “Ashleigh wants everyone in the kitchens. We’re making food for the guards. No telling what people will do once the news hits the rest of everyone.” 

 

The manor is situated several miles from the town I live with its own tiny little alienage, but we’re fairly far from Redcliffe. With the way Maddy is acting, I’m thinking it’s best that I kept Fenarel here with me. Rioting, people going insane over something they have no control over - the point where looting and pillaging is rational because all the other options are taken away...I would’ve gone through it to get to Fenarel in the alienage. But I’m glad I won’t have to. 

 

The guards are all awake and bleary eyed. They don’t look twice at the bundle I’ve got hanging over my chest even though Fenarel is starting to squirm. 

 

I cross over to the kitchens from the small quarters of the kitchen staff and see Ashleigh already starting the fires. “Start baking bread, I want bacon in the pans and eggs, we need eggs; boiled or fried I don’t care. And someone start on some bloody broth.” She looks up at me. “Take care of your boy. Do you need to feed him first?” She looks at me pointedly. 

 

“No - no. He’s being weaned. I should feed him a bit though.” He’s already waking up and is not happy about it. He’s making little grunting noises on my skin. Ashleigh is already waving me away. There isn’t anything pre-cooked that would do him any good, so I have to boil water and use leftover wheat cereal, adding in dried beef that I cube as small as I can. While I start on that, I bribe him with a soft Orlesian cheese meant for children. 

 

Ashleigh doesn’t say anything about what I take from the cold larder. 

 

Fenarel eats the cheese greedily and when the gruel I make for him is done, I perch on a stool and feed it to him slowly. In between feeding him, I eat a spoonful for myself.  

 

The door that leads to the courtyard outside is thrown open. A young elf boy, a stable hand I recognize, spots Ashleigh and manages to gasp out: “The templars are in the town. They thought the alienage was hiding the mages but they weren’t. They’re - they’re killing everyone. Cutting them down.” 

 

And all the noise in the kitchen dies. The bacon sizzles in the pan unattended and Tamra, in the middle of kneading dough stops. The spoon of gruel I’m holding out to Fenarel is empty now and he’s trying to get my attention so I’ll keep feeding him, but I barely notice. 

 

“You fucking what, when?” Meera breaks the silence. The boy nearly collapses on a spare stool. 

 

“They’re all fighting.” 

 

“Even the town?” Ashleigh asks. 

 

He nods. “Templars started knocking on everyone’s doors. They found mages in the town - and they started fighting. There’s fire everywhere.” He starts to sob and lays his head in his hands. 

 

Ashleigh and the others go gray in the face. “Maker...my husband, my children!” Tamra starts for the door but Ashleigh holds up an arm. 

 

“Are they evacuating?” She moves in front of the boy and grips his skinny shoulders tightly. He keeps shaking his head. 

 

“They’re trying but they’re everywhere, they barred the alienage, threw fire over the gate and killed the guards and-and said they were harboring more apostates. More mages showed up out of the woods and starting killing templars and nobody cares that people are getting in the way.” He chokes on a sob and I notice his torn sleeve, the blood on his shirt that’s already drying and brown in the firelight. My skin crawls - it’s not his, but it was someone’s. 

 

Ashleigh gathers her skirts and marches out the door and everyone but Maddy follow her. Maddy’s hands are over her mouth. “The alienage…” She starts but doesn’t finish. The boy shakes his head and brings his knees to rest his forehead on top. He keeps crying and Maddy stands nearly perfectly still but for the occasional full-body shiver. 

 

“What do you mean we can’t leave?!” I hear Ashleigh bellow from outside. “My family is out there!” 

 

I wrap Fenarel in his sling and throw the feeding spoon down to peer outside. It isn’t just Ashleigh - the full kitchen staff, the few servants that stay in the manor are all out in the courtyard talking to the guard captain. All the guards are awake and fully dressed - and I see several archers on the parapet that hangs over the high gate that guards the manor. 

 

My heart reaches my throat and a distinct panic starts to settle in me. Fenarel senses this and begins to cry so I try to calm myself and him, but my anxiety kicks it up several notches at his sounds of distress. 

 

“Lord Garuth’s orders. The alienage is burning and the town is a wreck, woman. No one leaves the manor. There’s fighting beyond these walls and we don’t know if it will reach us. If things calm down soon, we’ll open the gate and you can all go home.” He speaks in a calm, authoritative manner but Ashleigh and the other women are too wound up to mind it. 

 

“We’ve got families out there, you wanker!” 

 

“Me children, oh Maker, me children!” 

 

“So where’d all the mages come from if they didn’t find any in the alienage?! Who was hiding them?” 

 

“Fuck the mages, ‘s the templars burning our fucking houses and killing people.” 

 

“How many are dead, do we know what people from what houses they killed?” 

 

I feel nauseous and dizzy - it feels too surreal - and I stagger back inside the kitchen to take over kneading the dough for the bread. Safer here than out there - I feel for Ashleigh and the others, I do. But me protesting out there with them will do no good and if the templars and mages see people coming down the road from the manor...maybe they’ll follow the trail. If they follow the trail to the manor, will the gate hold? Will the guardsmen be able to hold out? 

 

Fenarel quiets down. 

 

Maddy tends to the bacon and hauls up a wooden box of eggs and is mechanically frying them in the bacon grease. “It’s just like the Blight.” She says blankly. “Just you watch - the whole world is going to go mad now that the templars are fighting the mages.” 

  
I start braiding the bread dough. One over, one under, one over, one under. Cooking is easier to concentrate on rather than even trying to focus on what may or may not be happening out there. I just hope Maddy is wrong. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the reviews and kudos, and for those who just want to return and read this at all. You're all beautiful people.
> 
> elf-blooded children are supposed to look totally human, but feynriel had had pointier ears. So I'll just leave that there.
> 
> And there is another Fenarel in game in DA:O and possibly DA:2 with the Sabrae clan. And I realized I've only mentioned our heroine's name like twice in passing, but it's Nana "nah-nah". 
> 
> Next chapter picks up steam with a surprise guest (or maybe not a surprise) and more action.

Maddy isn’t wrong.

 

It doesn’t take long for the fighting to spill over.

 

On the third day of what is basically house arrest, I’m standing out in the courtyard with Fenarel in my arms enjoying a little early sunshine before I start in the kitchen, the manor gets company. 

 

Templars show up at the gate demanding to be let in to search the manor for apostates. Their armor is filthy with a crust of dirt and blood and most of them have their weapons at the ready. 

 

Guard captain Rolf refuses immediately to let them in. “We are harboring no apostates, but I have orders from the lord and lady of this manor to not let anyone in. They are afraid that with all the fighting going on, it would be inviting havoc.” 

 

The templar in charge comes right up to the gate and slaps a heavy, armored hand on the bars. “The Order of the Templars has a very specific creed. It is expected of the people of Thedas to obey wherever our jurisdiction falls. If there are apostates suspected to be within the grounds, doors must be opened. I understand that the fighting in the town over must have been frightening to the Lord and Lady, but I am  _ ordering  _ you to open this gate.” 

 

The guard captain says something back but I don’t stick around long enough to find out what. I hightail it back inside and speak to Ashleigh. The woman has held up admirably despite the tensions running high in the household but she straightens and looks worried when I tell her there’s essentially a platoon of templars wanting entrance. 

 

She curses. “I need to tell Lady Liana.” 

 

I sit on a stool and pointedly ignore the look Meera gives me when I don’t start helping with lunch and tea. “There’s templars at the gate. I think they’re the ones from town.” I say shortly. 

 

Meera curses and the other women in the kitchen stiffen but try not to let it show. 

 

Ashleigh comes back in with her face tight in worry and fear. “Lady Liana is going out to talk with the templar leader. Lord Garuth is refusing to let them in.” 

 

Tamra nearly pisses herself. “Wh-why? Why wouldn’t he just let them in? They’re only looking for apostates. If they don’t find any here, they’ll leave won’t they?” 

 

“Don’t be stupid.” Meera barks and forcefully rolls out a pastry crust with the rolling pin. “They didn’t leave town until they fucking burned it down. They’re not just looking for apostates.” 

 

“They’re with the Chantry!” Tamra protests. “They’re not, not thieving rapers.” 

 

Meera gives her an ugly look. “After that mess in Kirkwall with the Knight Commander, do you really think the templars are answering to the Chantry anymore? If you do, you’re a right idiot.” 

 

Tamra locks eyes with me. “They wouldn’t.” She insists. 

 

I don’t respond. I just tie Fenarel to my back in the event things go wrong somehow and start working on making clotted cream for tea. 

 

Things are eerily quiet in the manor once Lady Liana manages to talk the templars away. They’d turned back to the town, stomping in the dust and leaving a trail of blood and grime behind them. 

 

Everyone is still confined to the manor. The other women are nervous bundles of energy after having seen the templars. 

 

I have no idea what Lady Liana said to the templars, but I’m grateful it was enough to send them away. 

 

Lady Liana takes her tea and asks for me and Fenarel. I bring her the tea myself with Fenarel still lashed to my back. I set the scones and clotted cream and candied orange curls down beside her tea tray and she hums. 

 

“I was wondering what your boy looked like. You never mentioned him before.” She appraises Fenarel from what she can see. 

 

“There wasn’t a reason to, my lady.” I say as graciously as I can. 

 

“I suppose not, half-blooded as he is.” She clucks her tongue. “Tell Ashleigh to make dinner light. Our guests aren’t feeling particularly hungry and Lord Garuth is already abed.” 

 

I take the message to Ashleigh and she sets her fists on her hips. “Just light? No requests?  _ Bloody fine _ .” She sets to seasoning whole chickens with sprigs of rosemary and mace and salt. “Just as well. We’re running low on the larder. We hadn’t stocked up before this mess, so we had best hope they won’t be squatting in that town much longer. No merchant would brave that lot for any coin. And with all the smoke and fire...” she trails off and clears her throat. The whereabouts of her family are unknown, like the rest of the servants. None of the people from the town or alienage have come running to the gates for sanctuary since our house arrest. Everyone is thinking the same thing even if no one has outright said anything. Not even Meera will voice it.

 

Emma starts peeling potatoes and carrots while I start making pie crusts to fill with the berries that are starting to go sour. I fold extra sugar in the berries while I set them on a simmer over the stove and use wine instead of water. The bubbling of the highland berries, a close cousin to blackberries or so I’m told, oozes sticky bubbles. 

 

I weigh the pastry crusts down with old beans we’ve not used and set them to bake for a while. The edges were crimped with a fork and basted generously with some of the last of the butter and more sugar. 

 

Meera is making a thick mushroom soup to supplement the relatively lean meal we’re making. Most of the rest of the staff went to bed already since they’d been awake before breakfast and had made all the bread for the day. No one knows where Tamra went but Ashleigh waves off the concerns. “She’s worried about her family. Let her breathe. She’s sensitive, that one.” She’d said.

Dinner is a quiet affair. The kitchen sets it out in the dining hall for the Lady and her guests and her children and the staff all eat with our plates of leftovers balanced on our knees. The stableboys took theirs outside but the maids eat with us. I feed Fenarel small scraps of chicken and mashed potatoes from my fingers. 

 

It’s too quiet and Maddy won’t leave me alone. She keeps looking at me, at Fenarel, and at all the walls as if she expects them to start closing in on us. “They won’t leave.” She says suddenly when I’m in the middle of washing myself and Fenarel. She’s a few feet from us in the servants’ bath. She perches on a stool with her hair undone and her washing finished, but she still hasn’t left. 

 

I’m not ashamed to admit that she’s frightening me a little at this point. But I think she’s right. 

 

I’ve still got to finish washing my legs and hair, and Fenarel has started sporting irritated heat bumps from all of his time in the kitchen. I smear more elfroot salve on his bumps. Fenarel, ever mindful of my moods, tries to stick a wet finger in my ear. 

 

“What do you think will happen?” I’m fairly ignorant of how far the templars’ jurisdiction actually reaches but I really hate the feeling that they might not care what’s actually legal for them to do.

 

She appraises me. “They’ll come back. And they’ll do to us what they did to the town and the alienage.” 

 

“I thought they were holy soldiers.” The Chantry didn’t condone wholesale murder - did it? Was it like the Spanish Inquisition? Believe in this or die? I rinse my hair and scrub at the bottoms of my feet with a rough stone. Nearly two years in this world, but most of the people I deal with have a very fuzzy understanding of their faith and the Chantry. I know more about Dalish beliefs than Andrastianism.

 

“They are. But I don’t know if they’re listening to the Chantry anymore.” Maddy is watching Fenarel with wide, unblinking eyes and I shift my body to cover him. “I don’t think you should stay here. You’ve got your boy.” She nods down to him. “We - we should leave.” 

 

“We?” I echo stupidly. Leaving isn’t really what I have in mind, but staying sounds more and more dangerous. There’s no home to go to - everything I ever owned from my world is gone in the fire or stolen by now and my chest aches at the thought. And Fina - Fina is elsewhere, away from the fighting, with her clan I hope. I’d make for Kirkwall, if possible, but it sounds worse over there. I don’t even have the return address on the letter Fina had gotten from her clan. It was in our home. What concerns me a little is the way Maddy is attaching herself to Fenarel and I. Maybe she lost family in the Blight. Or she saw children die. 

 

There is something haunted, tormented, in the way she watches us with that stare. It’s almost empty, hollow, but there is a gaunt kind of hunger to it and it makes my skin crawl all the way into my scalp. 

 

Maddy is nodding vigorously now. “We could leave tonight, take whatever food we could and leave, maybe make for Redcliffe? It’s a long walk...but the arl is a good man.” 

 

Fenarel tugs at my wet hair, so much longer than it had been when I’d first gotten here. Dragons, elves, mages and magic and wars about religion and racism and political gambits. I don’t know much about templars, but I know enough to make me wary. That, and the whole setting my fucking town and the alienage on fire - I pointedly don’t think about Maeve or Pick or Lish the woman with the nanny goat. 

 

It’s a truth the manor is trying to ignore. Lady Liana had talked them away, but they’d gone back to the town to wait. Food is running low. The people in the manor, all the servants from the town and the alienage, are all anxious and angry and terrified. 

 

It’s strange to be perhaps the luckiest one out of all of them. Displaced, lost, dazed and confused, but at least my family isn’t in the town. 

 

“Alright.” I say finally, reluctant. I don’t really want to go anywhere with Maddy, but I don’t trust myself enough with the roads to go alone. And staying seems like suicide. “We leave tomorrow night.” I don’t want to be on the road immediately when the templars just came today.

 

Maddy curls in on herself with a noise that sounds like agreement.

 

I finish washing Fenarel and let him crawl around by my feet, slapping at the stone floor of the baths. I make sure to cover as much of him as I can while keeping Maddy in my periphery. The sensation of my skin crawling worsens while I wash my hair as fast as possible. 

 

She’s still watching us, head resting on her pulled-up knees and she’s nibbling at the tip of her thumb.  

  
  


...

  
  


When it happens, it starts with a stableboy running through the servants’ quarters yelling and bellowing at all of us to wake up - the manor is under siege. 

 

“Templars! Templars! Someone let them in the back gate!” he yells hysterically. “Lord and Lady’s son is a mage! He’s a  _ mage _ !” 

 

I wake with a start and nearly roll Fenarel off of me from it, Emma is rubbing the sleep out of her eyes groggily and I notice that Tamra’s bed is untouched. The thundering of footsteps makes my heart thud in my chest painfully, and I roll over to the little chest beneath my cot and dig out my servant’s dress, undressing as quickly as possible grabbing my knapsack. I should have left earlier. I had packed days’ prior but halfheartedly, strung out on the hope the templars would leave us alone or some form of law or government would step in. The knapsack only has a tunic, leggings, extra diapers, my smalls and my pay. 

 

Emma is flying out of the room, shouting for Ashleigh. I hear the chaos outside of our dorms. 

 

Heavy footsteps, the sound of armor and mail, shouts and the distant sounds of fighting. 

 

Fenarel had soiled his diaper during our short rest, so I clean him as fast as I can, tossing the dirty one out of the little window since there’s no time to wash or salvage it and wrap him in a new one, then tie his sling to my chest. 

 

Gasping breaths and a hand slapped to the doorframe rattles me enough to jump when I look up, but it’s Maddy. Her hair is out of its normal twist, writhing like a pile of snakes, and there’s blood on her face and hands. Not hers, I realize a moment later when I see the long knife she’s carrying covered in blood. 

 

“We need to leave. They killed the Lord’s son. And the Lady. They’ve started raping the staff.” She grabs my wrist in a slippery grip and she’s tugging us out of the room. Her ears are twitching at every sound, every noise and my gorge rises when I see a man in armor on the floor moving rhythmically over one of the maids who’s screaming and choking on the hand slapped over her mouth, dark red puddling beneath her quickly. Two other templars watch and don’t see us. We can’t do anything for her. I don’t know her name.

 

Maddy doesn’t even slow down at the sight, just tugs me along faster. “Stay behind me. Stay behind me.” She chants it like a prayer and I do, grateful that she’s here now that this is happening. It isn’t even dawn - they’d waited, they’d waited for us to go to bed to make their move. Circling like vultures. They broke the back gate, or someone let them in - and my mind drifts to Tamra’s empty bed, her untouched sheets and the solid belief that letting them in to conduct their investigation would bring us no harm. 

 

We slip out from the servants’ dorms into the basement where the cold larder is that leads out to the side entrance near the garden. “Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry.” She hisses. Fenarel is starting to sniffle and cry but I press one hand on the top of his head, hum in my throat unevenly. 

 

There’s a dead guard in the basement. Half of his arm had been cut off and he’d been stabbed in the gut. 

 

I want to vomit. I want to drop to my knees and press my face against cool stone and wake up - I don’t want to be here, I never wanted to be here. I want to go home. I want a home to go home to. Fenarel sniffles again and I start humming again. 

 

Down the steps, a quick glance of the cold larder, and then she shoves me in the direction of it. “Get food. Get anything.” She stands at the ready with her long knife, ears twitching and eyes jumping to every dark corner and every door. She drops beside the guard and pockets his pouch of coins. 

 

The guard was already dead. She’s just trying to be helpful. She’s helping. He’s already dead. He was already dead. 

 

I press my lips together, grab dried meat and fruit and the hardtack we keep for the guards and servants. There’s not much else down here. 

 

We go out into the gardens and it’s untouched so far. “Hurry, hurry, hurry.” The gate is locked, but she jams the point of the knife in and works it until the lock snaps off. She sticks her head out first and then waves me through. “Before they come.” 

 

In the distance, there’s still smoke rising from the alienage and the town. While we flee down the road, I turn to look back only once and see a figure in an open window fling herself out - Tamra? Ashleigh? One of the other maids? I can’t imagine Meera doing that. She’d fight to the death. 

 

The guards are still fighting, but losing. The screams continue to follow us until the manor is out of sight and my legs feel too weak to support me, but Maddy is relentless and grips my arm, her knuckles digging into my armpit. We kick up dirt and gravel behind us. My soft kitchen boots let me feel every dig of every single rock I trod over. The road, thankfully, is deserted. We have no pursuers, but I don’t see anyone from the manor running for their lives behind us. 

 

We run for nearly half an hour but we stop before I collapse. My adrenaline is still there, but I’ve used it all and my body is drained of everything. Maddy herds me off the main road and onto a tree stump. She paces back and forth, nibbling at her bloody thumb. “How...how far….Redcliffe?” I manage to get out. Fenarel, who has been so quiet quails now that we seem to be out of danger. I unravel him from the sling and cradle him, resting and nurturing as best I can. 

 

“A week. Maybe. If the roads are clear.” 

 

I catch my breath and I process what she just said. If the roads are clear. Meaning this happened in our little town, in the little manor we serve in - why wouldn’t it happen elsewhere? In the big cities, bigger towns, places that have Circles? Oh God, what if that’s why the templars were there? The Circle collapsed? Was Redcliffe even a safe choice at this point? It’s spreading like wildfire. The riots. The everything. Pillaging and raping and killing and senseless violence without an end against people who can and can’t defend themselves. 

 

“What if they aren’t?” I ask finally. I may have been reluctant, a little afraid of Maddy, but I’m grateful for her now. 

 

She snaps back to look at me, takes her thumb from her mouth. “We find another road. Longer, but maybe safer. Eat something, and feed da’fen.” She looks out to the road above us and I nibble on a square of hardtack and then feel nauseous immediately because an image of that poor girl, splayed out and dying under a templar goes through my head. 

 

I force myself to chew on hard meat and a dried peach until they’re soft and tiny and feed it to Fenarel. It isn’t good for him to be eating like this. He needs porridge and gruel, soft foods that are warm. But there was nothing I could grab that had that. He eats the pre-chewed food anyway, gurgling unhappily. 

 

Maddy had had the foresight to bring a water skein with her. I drink several swallows and Fenarel drinks greedily, but she doesn’t take a sip. I slip my boots off tenderly and my nausea worsens when I see blisters forming and spots of blood rising to the surface of my skin of my insteps and balls of my feet. I have nothing to wrap them. I have nothing to treat them with. I put my boots on painstakingly and try not to cry. 

 

We rest for maybe fifteen minutes before Maddy is forcing me up and she takes my knapsack from me since I’m carrying Fenarel. We push on, even with the afternoon sun hanging over us like bad smell when she interrupts our silence suddenly. 

 

“Did his father pick his name?” 

 

“What?” I’m a little out of breath at this point; the heat, the strain, the events of today are trying to pile over me. If I think too much about any of it, I might just lay down and not get up. I focus on Fenarel as much as I can. I won’t leave him. I won’t hand him over to Maddy even if his extra weight and body heat are killing me - he stays with me. 

 

“Fenarel. It’s a Dalish name. Not really a popular one either, not one a human would pick out. His father named him.” She’s looking over at Fenarel, who I have draped a wet cloth over to help with the heat. 

 

“Do you...do you know what it means?” Fina had been vague in her answer, saying it had meant a clever creature. 

 

Maddy goes quiet. “It comes from Fen’Harel. Why would your man give his son a name that comes from the Dread Wolf?” 

 

Fina had mentioned the Dread Wolf once, in brief passing but never his elvish name, she’d only referred to him as the Dread Wolf, the one who locked all their gods away forever. “S - he said it meant clever wolf.” That had been true, roughly. Fina had claimed it meant he was a clever thing, a little wolf. 

 

“It doesn’t mean he is Fen’Harel. But it comes from that. Maybe he meant for it to mean clever. We’ve lost a lot of our language. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” It’s a pretty explanation, but she delivers it flatly. She means nothing about it. 

 

I don’t think of the boy who likes looking up noses and whines for food and enjoys tickling and napping on someone as a great wolf, prowling at the edge of nightmares and locking away gods simply because it feels like it can. 

 

“I didn’t know.” I say truthfully. Maddy doesn’t say anything after that. I let the conversation die because I’m too out of breath to continue it, and I’m afraid of why she brought it up. 

 

We finally have to leave the heat shortly after our discussion since Fenarel - and now I can’t even think of that sweet, innocuous name without conjuring up some monster behind it  - starts crying. We go into the thick expanse of trees for comfort and I insist we stay close to the road, but off of it. If only to keep out of the heat. 

 

There’s a stream only ankle high in the cluster of rocks that flows freely. I wash Fenarel in it and let him splash around some while I fill the water skein and start tugging off my dress. I keep the leggings and shift on beneath it, but I can’t wear it anymore. If we need to run away, it will slow me down enough to get caught. 

 

Maddy remains taut like a bowstring but she cleans off the blood on her arms and face. She strips off her outermost layer and she’s left in a tight, thin dress elves seem to favor. 

 

We’re on the road again after that. Our layers are left behind like bodies near the stream, bloodied and laid out to bake in the sun. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since “fen” means wolf and “harel” means deceitful/liar, etc. I’m assuming Fenarel is derived from Fen’Harel but is meant more informally and likely far less incriminating. So, the definition of Fenarel (that I’m assuming for the purpose of this fanfic) is something like tricky/wily wolf (similar meaning, but more childlike in nature, imo) since I’m pretty sure naming your kid after the most "evil" god ever is bad, m’kay?


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I feel as though I may die here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n the action picks up, things happen. Yay, so we’re already a few weeks in to the time between DA2 and Inquisition. And just a reminder, her name is Nana. 
> 
> Thank you for the reviews, I do love hearing from the audience.

We stopped to sleep once. Well. We were supposed to sleep. I kept Fenarel pressed to my chest the whole time and felt as though I was being watched. I’d rolled over to Maddy and saw her eyes shining in the dark like a cat in the night, just staring at us. 

 

I didn’t sleep. 

 

We’ve been walking for a few days and have been lucky enough to not run in to any bandits. We met a merchant who sold us food for cheap with the last of my pay. I mentioned to him to maybe avoid the next town. Templars burned it. Then they took the manor by force. The old guy looked horrified. Once he saw Fenarel, he gave me a little more food and handed me a tiny, dented pot and a misshapen bowl with a couple of old spoons. 

 

Maddy has been silent. She walks besides me with her long knife tucked in what remains of her dress, eyes wide and alert and every once in a while, her ears will perk up or she’ll slow her gait as if she’s preparing for something. 

 

She’s offered to hold Fenarel several times since we’ve set out. I always say no. 

 

It doesn’t seem justified when I can’t really describe what it is exactly that I’m afraid she’ll do. I don’t think she’ll hurt him, or abuse him or anything. I just - there’s this gut feeling you get every now and then about something and it’s bad enough that you just have to listen. Like a survival instinct. 

 

I listen. 

 

So she watches. She barely eats. 

 

I never realized how unsettling it can be to just be watched. Not maliciously. Not even with the intent to do harm. Just...watched. All the time. My moment of peace is when I have to relieve myself and even then it isn’t much because I know she can hear me - elves can hear everything. I lived with Fina long enough to know that. 

 

And she doesn’t really let me go off on my own. I’d bathed myself and Fenarel the other day in a stream. I needed to clean his diaper, and we deserved more than just a wet cloth to wipe ourselves down with. I thought I could take a chance to just sort of let my hair down and not have someone up my ass. She’d tracked us down and had nearly been frothing with hysteria. 

 

“You left. You left, you left you left you left.” She kept repeating. Her hands fluttered like fine boned birds in the air, reaching and pulling back from touching Fenarel and myself. Her nails had all been bitten off. Her fingertips were reddened as if she’d put them in the fire.

 

“I just wanted to bathe.” I said calmly. Internally I’m torn between screaming and running away or crying.

 

After pacing and wringing her hands, one going to the folds of her skirts where I knew she kept her knife, she sat on a flat rock, knees drawn beneath her chin to watch. I’d like to point out that I was still naked and Fenarel was out of his diaper. It was...uncomfortably vulnerable. I just kept her in my periphery. 

 

She hadn’t had any nails to chew on so she chewed on the skin surrounding her nail beds watching us. I’ve been trying not to upset her since then.

 

I tear a crust off of a small heel of bread and hold half out to her. She barely glances at it, cheeks gaunt and body slowly thinning. I keep it and gnaw on a strip of dried meat. 

 

Fenarel got lucky with the merchant. He had rice and oats, I got both and have been carrying the woven sacks across my hips like a horse. But Fenarel has food, proper food with some berries or fruit we find. No milk, and I know that it’s a sticking point for him, but there’s little I can do about it. I promise him now and again, mouth to his little ear, how I’ll spoil him once I’ve found work and we have somewhere to live. I swear I’ll feed him til he pops. And then Fina will come home and we’ll find somewhere safe to live, and we’ll stay out of whatever is happening in the world.

 

“Are you sure you aren’t hungry?” I wave meat at Maddy. 

 

She looks at the meat, watches it move and purses her lips, looks at me with an unblinking gaze before she turns her attention to the road. “You’re carrying a lot.” She says instead. 

 

“Oh. Just Fenarel and his food, mostly.” We’ve both got food packs. I don’t think she’s touched hers. 

 

“I could carry the little one. Give you a break.” 

 

The back of my neck crawls, skin pulls taut, at the hollow hungry look she gives us. I shake my head and just continue eating. 

 

Supposedly in another week, we should be arriving at Redcliffe. 

 

I don’t know if I can stay with Maddy that long. 

 

Not to mention that she’d said before we’d begun this adventure on the road that Redcliffe was a week away. 

 

But - is it? How do I know she’s not leading me in some completely different direction? I can’t read the signs as well as she can. When I got dropped here, I effectively became illiterate. They all sound like they’re speaking English with variations of the accents it comes with, but the words aren’t in fucking English. I can’t really read shit. I always loved reading - still do, but I was slow at learning languages. I still slip in on my accent occasionally, an “l” may slide into an “r”. 

 

I can’t really read here. I can make out words, recipes, but books are beyond me and they are fucking expensive here. 

 

The point is, I haven’t seen a map to Redcliffe. I don’t see road signs. I would’ve asked that old merchant we saw, but I was afraid of her reaction. She’s been...getting worse. 

 

For all I know, she’s leading us in circles and is waiting to kill me so she can make off with Fenarel. 

 

I don’t like thinking about this. 

 

When we stop, it’s not quite nightfall and Maddy gets a fire started while I prepare a meal for Fenarel and myself. I hadn’t found any fruit and I don’t trust my plant-knowledge enough that I’ll risk roots, and the dried meat is almost gone. 

 

I spoon nearly tasteless rice gruel into Fenarel’s mouth after I cool it down. He hates it, makes a disgusted face every time, but he’s a sport. He chews like he knows what the situation is. 

 

Maddy sits across the fire with an empty bowl. 

 

“Be another week or so until Redcliffe.” She remarks. 

 

She said that a week ago. 

 

“You already said that.” I say delicately. “Maybe we should try for a small town?”

 

I’d seen a lone inn in a stretch of road - no money to pay for anything, but Maddy had avoided it, gripping my elbow in a tight grasp that nearly bruised. I’d thought about leaving, but my mind always flashes back fearfully to that night in the bathing area at the manor; her knees drawn up and eyes wide and her thumb bitten to the quick in her mouth, staring at us. 

 

I am afraid of her. Afraid because if I do leave I risk wandering alone with the world burning around me. 

 

She doesn’t say anything, just looks at Fenarel, looks at me, looks back at him. She sets the bowl down with a clatter that makes me flinch and rises up, fists clenched at her sides. She stares down at us, eyes gleaming in the dark and reflecting the firelight. She leaves and vanishes into the brush. 

 

I don’t see where she went. 

 

The forest is at once terrifying - because I have no weapon and a baby and I essentially fed people for a living - and peaceful. There are animal noises I can’t get used to in the night, but overall it isn’t too bad. We don’t go very far into the forest when we find a rest stop. 

 

But Fenarel squeals in the night. He writhes on me and lets out aggravated grunts and I wake slowly, bleary eyed and blind. Usually when he does this he’s messed himself. 

 

Two lights shine down at me. With the bit of moonlight overhead and the dying embers of the fire I’d accidentally fallen asleep next to, I see a form. 

 

Lean and thin and there’s a glint that catches the light. 

 

Maddy stands over me, feet planted on either side of me body and the knife is drawn at her side. I can’t see her features. 

 

“Give him to me.” She whispers, voice cracking from lack of water. 

 

I’m too shocked to really answer. Fenarel lets out a quiet wail of building anxiety. 

 

“Give him to me.” She says again. The knife at her side twitches. 

 

“Maddy.” I croak. I’m at the point where I could piss myself. “Maddy it’s okay.” God please let it be okay. I don’t want to die. I don’t deserve to be fucking trapped here and  _ die  _ here. “Maddy, please it’s okay, it’s okay, everything's okay, Maddy please don’t.” 

 

She moves quicker than I thought she could, knife forgotten at her side and she grips the dirty, torn lapel of my dress collar and forces me to sit up. “Give me back my brother you fucking shem!” I can see her facial expression this close. 

 

There’s a disconnect, an absence of being as I see her staring down at me with her teeth bared and knife at her side. Whatever Maddy is seeing isn’t me. 

 

Fenarel screams. 

 

“Shh, shh, shh, Andrin, it’s me, it’s your big sister. I’ve got you sweetling, it’s me.” She murmurs, babbling on incoherently. She reaches for him. 

 

I’ve never been in a fight before or had to really fend anyone off. I’m not aggressive and I’m still unsure when being assertive; Kimi was assertive, Fina was assertive. I tried to never rock the boat. 

 

But I see her reaching out for him, trying to grab him away from me and something inside just  _ flips _ . 

 

I roll Fenarel off of me and tear with my nails at the fingers that hold her knife. She screeches and claws me back, arm with the knife jerking in my hold for release. I twist my hips and she goes down next to what’s left of the fire with a loud thud. 

 

We grapple messily, but the knife goes somewhere and I can’t see where it lands. Her nails dig into my throat and I manage to punch her in the ear - it’s a sensitive place for anyone, but elves more so. She screams and puts a hand to her ear. 

 

I claw my way up, I only think that I have to get to my feet,  _ get to my feet, Christ get up, Nana _ . I kick her where I think her stomach is, stomp a few times. And there’s these noises, these terrible grunts she makes that sound wet and I hear snarling - wild and rabid and I realize it’s  _ me _ . 

 

I stumble from her, roll her further from me and feel blindly for Fenarel. He’s rolled out of the little blanket I always tuck around him, but I roll him back up messily and lift him. I still can’t see where the knife is. 

 

Maddy is still groaning on the ground and calling out for Andrin and calling me a stupid fucking shem. She’s trying to get back up. The idea of prolonging the fight makes me queasy with Fenarel an easy causality waiting to happen. 

 

I stumble away in the darkness, tripping on roots and feeling rocks stabbing me in the feet. My heart is in my throat, I feel like I’m oversensitized and too many things are happening at once. My breathing sounds so loud. I hear an angry yell in the distance and I pick up the pace. One hand presses Fenarel to me while my other is stretched out in front of me, feeling the trees pass me by. 

 

I don’t know how far or long I ran. 

 

By the time I stop, it’s because I can’t breathe anymore and sweat stains my entire body. Fenarel has long stopped whimpering, but his big eyes are alert and afraid. 

 

When I stop, my legs shake so badly that my knees lock and I fall halfway to the ground. I barely catch myself and let my forehead rest on a bank of moss. 

 

I don’t see or hear Maddy. I don’t even know if she left the campsite. She could still be there with only her long knife for company. 

 

I’m too exhausted to feel much of anything. 

 

The forest isn’t really dark anymore, the sun is barely peeking out. 

 

I try to lift myself but I can’t. I’m just so fucking exhausted. I could lie here until I die. Fenarel hiccups and squirms pointedly beneath me. Between my sweat and heat and the harrowing run through the forest, I’m not really surprised he’s annoyed at me, but I can’t really bring myself to care. 

 

He starts sniffling and pushing at me with his little fists and I fear I might be squashing him beneath me so I force my body to roll to the side and on my back. Fenarel still kicks and wriggles in my grasp. 

 

I feel so defeated, deflated, done and over. 

 

I hum brokenly to him, my eyes drooping. I just want to rest. 

 

And I feel warmth spread across my chest. It’s pungent and sour. 

 

Fenarel gags the rest on me, coughing. 

 

My eyes fly open - Oh fuck, oh God, oh God, oh God what? I sit up and feel his cheeks, his forehead and he is burning up. 

 

His vomit stinks. It’s just the leftover rice gruel and whatever else I’d managed to get in his stomach. 

 

I hold him up and get myself to my knees, then to a squat and rise to an unsteady stand. 

 

I need water - shit. Shit, shit, shit. I didn’t take anything from the camp when I ran. No water, no food, no extra diaper - I have nothing. 

 

I stagger and keep walking. It was too dark to see what direction I’d run in last night. And this may kill us. I feel like crying, just sobbing but I’m too wrung out and Fenarel needs me more than I need to cry. 

 

He wails loudly the whole time. Gagging and getting sick to the point I end up having to callously hold him out while he vomits outside of his blanket. The smell on my clothes makes us both nauseous. 

 

There’s no choice left, really. 

 

I strip out of what I have left except my smallclothes and a nearly, very worn translucent slip. I tear the sleeves off what was left of my dress and most of the skirt. It will at least be useful for an extra diaper. 

 

I walk, nearly trip over giant roots, catch my shoulder and trees. 

 

Fenarel cries and wails and gets sicker. 

 

I finally see a trail. Manmade. It’s narrow and slim but it isn’t just bare forest. It isn’t the road, but I’ll take it. 

 

There’s small statues along the way. I’ve never seen them in a city before. I don’t know who they represent. 

 

I keep plodding along. 

 

There’s a stream that I’m so excited to see I splash into it bodily. I pour cold water on Fenarel and try to get him cooler. He coos at the change. I manage to get some water in him and I have to strip his diaper from him, flinging it on the grass and counting it as done for. 

 

I drink so much water I nearly choke. 

 

Fenarel is cooling off and drinking water greedily - but he’s unhappy because I limit his water intake. He is happier when I clean him - there’s elfroot that I chew down and smear on him to help clean him. 

 

I still don’t know where we are. 

 

There’s a giant statue of a wolf set near the streamside, half of its face is broken off. A half-open pavilion sits beside it there’s an overhang with stone pillars, stone benches, and something that I think might have been some sort of bird bath. 

 

I wrap Fenarel in the remnants of my dress that I’d torn off and he settles more comfortably against me. 

 

I sit down on the bench and lay down across it. Fenarel snuffles my chest, hiccuping a little. Exhaustion slams down and I barely hear or feel anything else. I feel as though I may die here.

 

…

 

“...s...ss...lass…” A voice calls overhead and I inhale and rise sharply, arm already around Fenarel and ready to push her away - God why, why is she here?

 

An old face stares back, gaping. “Lass. It’s alright. No need to fret. Old Tegrin won’t do anything to you or your boy.” He gestures vaguely with his chin. 

 

I gasp in air I didn’t realize I wasn’t breathing in and Fenarel cries out in my arms, for the first time in forever squirming away from me. I’m holding him to tightly. I let up my grip and scuttle back, forgetting I’m on a lengthy stone bench and nearly fall off. 

 

A dwarf with a blocky tattoo on his cheekbone stares back at me. Although there’s still some sun out, it’s early evening. 

 

Back at the manor, we would’ve been halfway through dinner-prep. 

 

I focus on the dwarf. He holds up his hands. “It’s alright. I just saw you and your boy and...well, neither of you look like you’re doing too well.” Behind him, a white oxen lows and shuffles forward, drawing a heavy cart. 

 

“What.” My voice cracks like glass down the middle. I can’t say anything else, my throat feels tight. Fenarel snuffles against my chest, hiccuping in distress. 

 

The dwarf sighs and clucks his tongue. The oxen comes closer. The dwarf dives into the heavy cart’s back and pulls out a long tunic and a heavy cloak meant for a man. He tosses both my way. “Cover up, it’s getting dark and your boy needs more warmth than that.” He looks at Fenarel, frowns. “I don’t have diapers, not my stock, but I carry old cloth scraps. You never know when you need them.” 

 

I pull myself into the clothing and wrap the cloak around Fenarel, binding him tighter to my chest and warmth. 

 

We sit in silence and finally he sighs heavily. “What happened?” He asks quietly. My tongue feels too fat, too heavy to speak with. “Alright...where are you going?” 

 

“Red...Redcliffe.” I takes several swallows to get the word out. 

 

He eyes me before pity consumes the look. “Okay. Well, I happen to need to restock some things and Redcliffe isn’t too far, and what with all this crazy mage rebellion happening, I’ve been told to stay away from small towns and near the Circles.” 

 

He pulls out a skein of water and a hunk of bread and cheese and lays them on the bench in front me. He steps back, patting his oxen. I fall upon them, gnawing at the bread until it’s soft and wet before offering it to Fenarel. 

 

“So?” The dwarf asks. 

 

I meet his eyes. I look from him, to his oxen, and the cart full of goods and I want to say no, want to leave because I trusted someone I barely knew and they nearly killed me. Out of her mind or not, I think she’d been planning to separate Fenarel and myself. 

 

Fenarel sighs at my collarbone and his warm little puff of breath shudders out of him. His forehead is still warm and sweaty. He smells less sickly than earlier, but there’s no choice. No choice in this goddamn world. 

 

I look at the dwarf, whose name I don’t remember now, and nod slowly. “Okay.” 

 

He smiles, but it’s mostly sympathetic and small. “Let’s get you and your boy fed and start a fire. We’ll head out in the morning.”


End file.
